Editing Iron Gaze (section)

====The Reclamation of Nazareth====

In year 712 M41, the Warp Storm that surrounded Anatolex sector for almost two thousand years finally dissipated. The news of re-established communications with once prosperous sector spread quickly. Extensive scanning performed by tech-priests of Adeptus Mechanicus and Navigators of Navis Nobilite that the Warp storm changed Warp currents, rendering their old charts obsolete.

Furthermore, the scanning showed a new, stable path straight into (and out of) the powerful Orcish kingdom of Charadon, a previously unassailable fortress packed with orcs of Snagrod the Arch-Arsonists Waaagh!
Unfortunately, the Orcs caught the smell of fresh territories ripe for plunder, and were already starting with their raids.

High Lords of Terra jumped at chance to finally strike at the Orcs before they launch another invasion. For this purpose, a decision was made to send forth a Space Marine chapter to bring the fight to the pesky greenskins. The decision fell to Clan Vurgaan of the Iron Hands chapter.

Iron Hands made their preparations with utmost haste, and within a year they were already fighting the Orcs in the Anatolex sector.

During the year 721 M41, a Clan Company led by the Iron Father Hannibal Kinthir, an accomplished veteran of the First War for Armageddon, arrived in orbit of Nazareth. What they found was the most peculiar planet they ever saw: sporadic continents separated by vast chasms, dotted with dozens and hundreds of pyramidal structures and covered with shifting spots of atmosphere. Scans indicated that native human population was in conflict with a group of Orcs who were also performing extensive salvaging on planet and wreckages of massive orbital stations.

Iron Hands didn’t waste any time and they immediately made planetfall on Nazareth. While not numerically strong, the Orcs proved to be solid foes, fighting with uncommon zeal and employing some unusual weaponry. But Orcs fought on more than one front: they were dealt heavy losses by what seemed as cybernetically augmented, but incredibly feral humans, the native descendants of Nazareth colonists. Kinthir decided that Orcs needed to be dealt as soon as possible in order to protect already sparse native population from extinction. The infestation was soon wiped, and victors soon turned to searching for the source of the strange weaponry Orcs used, as well as establishing contact with techno-barbaric tribes of Nazarethians.

The source of the weapons turned out to be the strange pyramids that dotted the landscape. A decision was made to salvage as much of technology as possible for research and data gathering, and defer any further decision-making on future of natives and painfully obvious xenotech being used.

But before the plan could be accomplished, a massive battlegroup of Orcs arrived in the orbit of Nazareth, finished with plundering the nearby Agriworld, Galil. The group was led by the Arch-Arsonist himself, summoned by the now-dead Orcs to Nazareth for its strange technology.

Kinthir refused to leave Nazarethians to their fate and to let the technology fall in powerful Warbosses hands. A fierce battle ensued, lasting for days, with Iron Hands fighting stubbornly and relentlessly. It is said that after a week of fighting, Iron Father Kinthir engaged Arch-Arsonist in a duel that lasted whole night and out of which they both came heavily wounded. Before the duel could conclude, Iron Hands reinforcements arrived, forcing the massive Orc to flee.
However, Kinthir was heavily wounded. As he layed there with Apothecaries swarming over him to save their courages Iron Father, a vision of a single glaring eye floating over a golden throne came upon him. What Kinthir heard in vision, no one knows. But after the ordeal, he was known to often say his famous phrase: “The Emperor Watches”.

By the time Kinthir recuperated from his wounds, a decision was made by High Lords of Terra that a new crusading chapter of Space Marines will be created to protect the Anatolex sector, coinciding with 26th Founding. For his valor, Kinthir was named a Chapter Master of the new chapter, the Iron Gaze. He requested for Nazareth to be awarded to them as their Homeworld, much to the confusion of High Lords and Iron Hands why anyone would want a planet in such a sorry state.

But Kinthir had a quest.

He forgo his old name, taking upon himself the title and name of Son of Nazareth, and led his chapter to their new home.

Over the course of years, Nazareth went through major rebuilding. Orbital stations and sensor arrays were repaired, the damaged tectonic plates were stabilized with use of custom-ordered terraforming machinery and a massive fortress was built to serve as Fortress-Monastery for the Iron Gaze chapter.

The Chapter Master made decision that they will recruit candidates from the barbaric tribes of Nazareth. Cybernetic barbarians proved to be quite fitting for the chapter, taking the usual Iron Hands devotion for cybernetic augmentation even further. It turned out that while Nazarethians degraded both socially and technologically over the course of centuries, the knowledge of implementing cybernetic augmentation was kept safe and passed over the generations by tribal Tech-shamans. Because they lacked the knowledge to create new pieces of the technology, such items were deemed sacred, and often passed from father to son within family, or simply extracted from their fallen foes, which was also the most common cause of inter-tribal wars.

And just as Nazareth grew, so did the chapters knowledge and understanding of past events on the peculiar planet. Many dataslates were found throughout devastated cities and stations from various civilians, soldiers and tech-priests, telling their experiences of life and war on Nazareth. But no technological trove, no data slate was more valuable than the one found on one of the orbital stations, the one belonging to Archmagos Intendant Amenhal himself. Within it, the Iron Gaze found detailed events that transpired over centuries, the info and schematics of wide variety of experimental hybrid xenotech and even personal notes and musings of the eccentric Archmagos.

With borderline heretical zeal, the Iron Gaze started reproducing these experiments, adding layer upon layer of cybernetic augments to themselves. Some tech-priests in their retinue were fascinated with findings, while some were outraged with heretical tech and reported these events to Mechanicus, which responded with demand that entire Nazareth be subjected to exterminatus.

After Iron Gaze refused the demand, Mechanicus, not having enough evidence to proclaim the marines traitors, simply pulled their support from the chapter. Nonetheless, plenty of Marines and tech-priests remained, allowing them to rebuild ancient factories on Nazareth and allowing them to simply provide for themselves.

The technology that was produced in decades that followed was simply amazing. Iron Gaze swept away the Orc threat with ease during the time, further cementing their position and protecting them against Mechanicus queries about their so-called heretical practices.